﻿Knowledge is not driven by the "immanent laws," but produced and reproduced
in the orbit of a given power structure and social milieu. The dissertation aims to
explore the nexus between power and knowledge in China by examining how social
science journals produce and disseminate academic knowledge. Scholarly publishing
serves as the quality control mechanism and communication channel in science. Since
the 1990s, the significance of core academic journals has been further strengthened by
the sweeping diffusion of quantitative evaluation system which made journal raking
the most salient yardstick. This central position calls for a thorough empirical study of
the nature, structure and practices of journal publication in transitional China.
The thesis focuses on the institutional practices of journal publishing. It
addresses questions around the political-economic contexts and institutional structure
of journal publication, the nature and dynamics of gatekeeping, and the mechanism of
academic hegemony. Specifically, there are three broad clusters of questions. (1) How
do scholarly journals situate in the larger contexts of state power, academic
marketplace and the danwei system? How do journals as a homogeneous institution
establish ties with other organizations and develop practices of gatekeeping to cope
with the uncertainties posed by these forces? (2) What is the nature and dynamics of
editorial work and gatekeeping processes? To what extent editorial decisions are
reached through personal discretion and negotiation among gatekeepers? (3) How do
state power, money, local interests and guanxi networks influence the process and
outcome of scientific gatekeeping? How do these external or internal factors
determine the authors‘ access to journal editors and the editorial decisions done to the
manuscripts?
Theoretically I draw on the literature from a variety of fields that examine the political economy, sociology, and organization of cultural production. The empirical
data used in this study includes (1) field notes, (2) transcripts from semi-structured
interviews with editors and researchers from different universities, and (3) published
journal articles from sample issues and archival materials collected from field
observation and in-depth interviews. Following a general approach of grounded theory,
I try to provide a "thick description" of the contexts, determinants, processes,
consequences, and limits of journal publication.
I shall begin with a political economic analysis of the legitimation, stratification
and commercialization of scholarly publishing, in relation to state power and academic
marketplace. It then describes the institutional arrangements of local support system,
internal appointment of editorial personnel and the editor-dominated reviewing
approach; such arrangements were developed to cope with the political, economic and
professional uncertainties of the macro-level environments. I shall then analyze the
social practices of editorial decision making, the rise of anonymous reviews and its
implications for the legitimacy of journal publication. I shall also examine the
influences of guanxi networks on the process and outcome of scientific gatekeeping.
The study concludes that journal publication in China is based on a "danwei" system, distinct from the peer review system in the US and other countries. Under the
danwei model, journal organizations are co-opted into the state orbit through
corporatist relationships of licensing and danwei affiliation. This model also results in a
review process primarily controlled by internal editors. Overall, the privileged
organizations monopolize the decision-making power, and the decisions are often made
for non-academic reasons. The danwei system has kept academic autonomy of social
sciences in general and communication in particular at bay.